Under the Baobab Tree

The La Conner Looney Tunes

Everyone wants to know how the La Conner wedding ended up. Mahvelous, simply mahvelous. First, the cast of characters:

• Allison, youngest woman CEO of something or other, now in NYC, waspy, Dartmouth, highly controlled individual. A hard nut to crack.


• Carlos, the Colombian Personal Trainer, Allison's most recent boy. Met in a gym. Was supposed to get married this month to someone else. Relayed whole story in the library of the hotel one morning, softly weeping into his muscled Colombian hands, desolate. Question -- does one tell Allison?


• Tracy, the sister of the groom. Rambunctious Armenian woman. Visibly pregnant. Host of the rehearsal dinner. A groomsperson. From Sacramento.


• Doug, Tracy's diminutive husband. Purports to be a screenwriter with bad luck, nothing ever gets picked up. The reason? He's not actually a screenwriter, he runs a soft porn website. Yes. Everyone knows this except his mother.


• Trevor, one of bride's oldest friends (other than me). Went to our high school. Was so ahead of his time in school that he was an outcast. Walked the bride down the aisle and then promptly tripped on her train and stumbled into the audience.


• Douglas (another one), Trevor's partner. Incredibly shy individual who is a graphic artist for Mad Magazine. Tall, shocking red hair, bright blue eyes. Turned out to be absolutely hilarious and my constant companion throughout the weekend. Dubbed by me as Doug Lass.


• Judith, the bride's 73-year old step mother, a real pistol. Motors around the country on her own, member of virtually every volunteer organization in Wilmington, DE, highly dismissive of lazy young people, sharp as a tack. Joined the Kim-Doug Lass cabal.


• Kristen, sister of the bride, Alexandria VA resident. Accompanied everywhere by her twin boys, Ben and Dillon. Challenge to all was figuring out which was which (Ben always wears blue, Dillon is a little fleshier of face -- complicated when both wore blue for the wedding).


• Chad, Kristen's new boyfriend, head of programming at PBS in Albuerquerque, NM, covered in tattoos, shaved head, sartorially challenged, very quiet. Initially dismissed by group as a bizarre Kristen whim. Turns out to be salt of the earth, devoted to Kristen's boys, a dedicated normal guy. Rounded out my weekend foursome with Doug Lass and Judith. Became affectionately known as Chad Roe.

Next, the rehearsal dinner. The bride and groom were committed to a laid back wedding. The rehearsal dinner was held in a biker pub in the cow town of Conway, Washington, a one dirt-road town hard up against the BNSF main line, on the other side of the slough from La Conner. Only other buildings in Conway are a corn silo and a general store. The freight trains do not stop there but they rattle every bone in every body as they blast through every 20 minutes or so. Sign on the front door of the Conway Pub said "No burnouts, peel outs, or speeding!" Droves of bikers ignored the sign all night. Meal was outside at tables under the Bud Light banners. I ate a fried oyster burger with bacon and cheese and a half carafe of pink zinfandel. A first for me.

Then, it was the day of the wedding. Wedding was on a farm half way between Conway and La Conner, smack in the middle of the slough. Again, the bride and groom were committed to informality. The service was 15 minutes long, outside, against a hedge of dahlias. The bride burst out in a belly laugh half way down the aisle. The ring bearers were actually two giant dogs -- a retired greyhound named Henny and a Burmese Mountain Dog named Desmond. They were brought in by the twins -- Desmond dragging Dillon way on ahead of Ben and Henny, Henny looking down his long nose at the audience as he passed as if to say, "hmmm….?"

After Trevor tripped over the bride's train and stumbled into the audience, the groom dropped the ring and Desmond lunged for it on the grass. Dillon flew through the air after him like a Raggedy Andy doll. Desmond circled the bride and groom and wrapped them up tight in his leash. The proceedings stopped while we unwound the couple, picked up the ring, and put Desmond back in his place. Meanwhile, Henny the Greyhound was stretching his back legs like a gymnast warming up for the floor exercise, or a track star getting settled in the blocks, gazing intently and calmly at the audience the whole time. Nobody could keep a straight face. A laughing chuckling wedding party, a laughing laughing audience, a laughing officiant, and the twins grinning from ear to ear, struggling with the dogs from start to finish.

After the wedding, Doug Lass and I explored the farm. He showed me a field of rhubarb which had some sort of sentimental value for him from his youth. I tried to go out into a ploughed field to show him a giant thistle but my heels got sucked into the earth and I crashed around like a drunk person in my yellow gingham dress, grasping at corn stalks and trying not to fall over, yelling "whoa! Whoa! Doug Lass laughed at me. Then we found a mysterious juniper hedge, dense and foreboding. A small child disappeared through it in silence and did not return. It was a Narnia hedge. Naturally, we pushed our way in. On the other side was an immaculate bocce court, surrounded by juniper trees. No sign of the small child. I dance around the bocce court, thrilled to find such a thing on the slough. Then I turn and see Doug Lass. He is irate. His push through the juniper hedge had left little botanical remainders all over his suit and he was brushing himself off with force shouting "Ah! Ah!" I come over to help. He looks at me and says, "You tricked me! You said this would be fine! It's not fair because you're in a yellow gingham dress and no-one can see that you are actually covered in juniper residue!" We laughed and laughed. Last part of this story is that I pushed on through the other side of the bocce court (Doug Lass did not follow) and found of all things a mirror in a small forested area. I stared at it. And then out of nowhere the wedding photographer arrived and got a picture of me in the mirror in the woods. Like the Secret Garden.

Final chapter -- bride is on her honeymoon and sends me a text message to say she has passed an excellent sign. "The Tillamook [Oregon] Air Museum." We chuckle and play the literalist game. What could be in there? A giant empty room? Displays of "Air Through the Ages?" "A Social History of Air?" It's almost as good as the Decoy Museum in Havre de Grace, Maryland. Every time I pass that sign I say out loud, to no-one in particular, "Ha! You can't fool me -- I'm going to wait for the real museum!"

posted by Anonymous @ 1:49 PM